


The Signal to Guide You Home

by rabble_dabble_writes



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family Dynamics, Finding out about past lives, Fire, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Memory Alteration, Metaphors, Searching for memories, Soul-Searching, Time Travel, Traveling, finding out about a past, i assure you that the ending is happy!, i think its very nice, i was told it was mostly subtle but comprehendable, sleepy bois inc - Freeform, the tags are a big of a spoiler if you cant quite understand but, youll mostly get it i hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabble_dabble_writes/pseuds/rabble_dabble_writes
Summary: This single lantern, in that distance above the other side of the meadow and on the edge of the opposing forest, bright and warm within the far distance of an ocean of darkness as if it is a lifeboat. He sees this, and he knows - this is some sort of offering, some sort of guidance. It is meant to show him some sort of way, some form of life, to see the beauty as he does restlessly elsewhere. Something in his body, in his soul, it aches for the warmth that this light casts. It almost feels complete.It is a signal. He is meant to follow, to see, to know.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Phil Watson & Technoblade - Relationship, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Tubbo & Tommyinnit, Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

It always appears, on the darkest of nights possible. The sun will complete its graceful dance in the sky, the archway of light and hope and life following it enthusiastically until the crash of the horizon prevents any further exploring of the sky, ending the hopes of golden clouds and hungry flowers. The day will have been long, or have been filled with the beauties that there are in the birthing of a new day - the wind brushing carefully through the hair of treetops, the streams that nurture the Earth and let meadows and forests have their fill of being parched, the mystical way that free animals bare from the life of a barn travel the grass aimlessly, aimlessly but not purpose-less. The carefully made pathway will have bent under his feet as they do, the gravel being kicked aside in his anger or boredom or cheer, and he will have been dreading a talk by the father that awaits him at home.

But he will go home, because he has one to go to, and he will listen to his father carelessly.

Wilbur is chaotic, and he is clever, and he is sharp. His wit and charm get him through most situations that he gets himself into, and if they don’t, he resolves the problem he has created for himself effortlessly. Phil has always praised him, from the moment Wilbur could curl the world around fingers, and he also warned him, for the times Wilbur figures out when the world will not bend for him. But even from childhood, Wilbur knows his father is a bit of a hypocrite - Phil has told him that he did not think about his life in this way, from a young age, when Phil could create and destroy and beckon and the world loved him. He did not think about the wife he would find, nor the kindness that he would spread, nor the son whom he would cherish until his dying, end days (far off, Wilbur hopes as always, far off) and the pride that would come from within. Wilbur has his father’s curled smile, and clever humor, and mystically enticing ways that would make the village girls flirt with him. From the moment Wilbur knows of the world, he knows it as the two of them - Wilbur, and his father, Phil. 

But there is a feeling that remains in him, the same way that he feels when he cannot find the right starting verse to a song he is working on. He sings all the notes he knows, bending his fingers to create the tune he knows beckons to him, but it isn’t  _ enough. _ Wilbur has gotten Phil to listen alongside him, to listen to the aching song that beckons to be made from Wilbur’s soul - Phil tells him that this ache is something he will learn to deal with, learn to overcome, but Wilbur knows his father too well and can see the way Phil’s eyes see into the distance and his feather’s brush up like there is something he is forgetting. 

And no, it is not as if there is something he is forgetting, per say - but there is something between an ache and a need, something alike to wanting desperately to hear the satisfying pop of a knuckle in a joint that will not cooperate-

There are two chairs in the dining room, both made from the surrounding oak wood in the forest around their home, but there is leftover wood that has went untouched and unturned into something alongside for years, and the gaping mouth full of hunger and spirit inside Wilbur tells him that it is  _ wrong.  _ It is not supposed to go unused. 

Phil suggests they go out and grab some rarer, smaller amount of dark wood to create the new chairs when the old ones get too wobbly on their carpet floors.

But Philza - there is no ache in the way that Wilbur would ever describe, not for a long while. For Philza, this feeling is more as a want - a want, a  _ wanting, _ a need to grasp the air for some form of support that is not there. It is like taking a misstep - his brain halts, his body has to grow accustomed to the fact that something in sense has been overcalculated, and Phil cannot understand why this simple step has made him feel as if he is falling. His builds and his son were made in the same way that most things come into the world - the want of creation, to make, but even as he strives forward to build a new temple or his heart bursts with love for Wilbur’s smile, he feels as if there is something else to  _ yearn. _

Phil does as he wants, and makes as he wants, but something beckons him from his toes to his nose that tells him to walk in a path that is not made. And he desperately wants to make it, wants to walk it, but the world appears directionless when you spot the horizon. 

But both father and son are meant to experience the world together, if from different perspectives. Wilbur feels as if there is something meant to be more and Phil feels as if there is a yearning to  _ find _ it, and even if they are beckoned both in entirely different ways they still end up taking embraces and looking for it together.

And the lantern - it casts gold against the dark canvas of night, when the fall is close and homes are becoming cozy. The lantern rises, far against the sky, suspended between the stars like it knows it is presenting itself. Its basking glow represents something, Wilbur knows, like the different flavors of love or the soft, gentle smells of home like cinnamon and heat. The stars hang around the lantern in jealousy, but the lantern is bashfully naive - it glows bright, and many see it among the sky, but it only beckons into the hearts of two.

_ Follow me,  _ it whispers. The ache, the tug, the want - Wilbur gasps to his father, “Phil, we  _ must _ see where that came from-”

And Phil is already shoving Wilbur’s arms full of survival items, hands trembling as he passes along materials with speed. Wilbur helps him, before they both realize it is the dead of night, before they both think rationally that perhaps it would be best to sleep so that the morning’s monsters would be within the daylight and easier to handle. 

The lantern - if emotions could be captured by objects, the lantern would smile down upon them. 


	2. Chapter 2

Technoblade is a name with many meanings, that instills many things and bouts of feelings into the hearts of those who hear it. Technoblade loves taking victories ruthlessly, but it is not due to any amount of blood he wishes spilled or unfeeling apathy he may carry.

If Technoblade had been born to love anything else in his life, he would have loved it to completion. It is the matter that Technoblade puts in all of his effort into battles, into fighting, that makes him feared, if only because strong-willed men are feared at all.

He doesn’t quite remember his past or where he came from before, and he doesn’t care to find out. This is where some may let judgment cloud over their eyes, as they do, and ponder how a person such as Techno could ever live without knowing the dying satisfaction of figuring the mystery out. Techno figures it as this much - if he were anywhere else, he would be meant to be there. Since he is not, he should care less, as his road does not continue in places where memories burn and curiosity remains. 

And the axe in his hand, it does not beckon him towards a past unknown. It only does as he wishes, wordlessly, and he wishes sometimes that nosey theorists could do the same.

He supposes that (though he will never admit it) this is where his weaknesses come in, though. His absolute dedication to one thing has left him grasping at edges for another, and although Technoblade is exceptionally skilled at wielding a weapon, he is certainly weak in…

Well. Making connections. 

The fight for a friendship is something as alien to him as the fight for a battle is familiar, truthfully because he thinks in the mindset that he must win and he must be the  _ best. _ He knows and hears the stories of the way one warrior will fight for another, or perhaps the fulfilling way that life gifts upon those who are meant to be selfless and exceptionally kind. He is aware that, between his world and another’s, creating friendships and creating love is a part of many lives that know of fulfillment and joy.

But Techno seeks no companionship - he denies, he denies, he lives in an entirely separate world where the ones he holds close are enchanted swords and a stack of arrows. As it is that he knows of his place within his mind, of the world, of the lone warrior - others were meant and built for friendships, he knows. Others were meant to sail alongside the golden horizon for a story and a song and shared memories amongst a family. 

It’s he, just himself, that rows against the horizon, and he knows his hands don’t tire, he knows he doesn’t wish for anything beyond the silence, because this is the life he lives (and he doesn’t seek for anything else - there is  _ nothing _ else  _ to  _ seek.

He swears it.)

Technoblade grows from a warrior to a champion, as he wins and wins and (loses, sometimes) and wins. The blood beckons and the voices call softly, but he is satisfied with just a victory as he is but a being alongside whispers that cannot do anything to him. He is sure that only he can hear the feisty talkers that stain the air, lingering and taunting and forming a colossal opinion on everything and everybody, but they cannot control him. It is very laughable for them to think they can, as he only abides by their silly rules and games just because it makes the challenge for winning that just more amusing.

And sweet, really. Sometimes they even help him win. Other times they’re completely useless, but it is the world he knows, and the  _ only _ one he wishes to know. He does not care for anything else. (He will deny that he cares for them.)

But as destiny calls, so do the lonely, quiet nights to visit the stars and wonder otherwise.

He ignores it, the first time around. The pitiful dot against the sky hazily glows in contrast to the darkness that almost swallows it, and the beckoning in the air is something completely only coming from the light itself. It is different, in the way that the voices speak to him - they are some unseen force in the world, the spectators that are allowed to guide and aid him whenever he needs it unlike the countless real people he meets in chance encounters and before battles. The light, though, it doesn’t speak with curiosity or some calling or some yearning.

It speaks as if it knows - as if it is a  _ friend. _

Technoblade shoots down that first lantern with a quick arrow - he doesn’t seek for it when it flies past his vision and somewhere likely on the ground. He doesn’t see any trace of it when he happens to pass by the spot it would have landed, where it would be pitifully broken and covered in light snow.

He swallows down the feelings of familiarity; he has no want for his past, and he strives towards the future.

As the world changes, so does he; brighter, faster, a better fighter. He finds friends in the strangest places but unsurprisingly in the ones he knows. The landscape is an arena to show a battle, but to show a trust, and because of this the few that can understand attempts to make their way closer to Techno in spirit. Some, he could give the effort and time of day - there is a strategy that he moves in life and this seems like something they could agree upon. Others, he thinks they try too- too- 

Well, just not  _ enough. _

Sure, they’re try-hards, but not in a way that makes sense. The ones that invite him for constant sparring and advice, they have a gleam in their eyes that makes even someone like Technoblade bade them off most days. The ones that invite him to a place or an event feel too  _ stiff,  _ as if they are searching for the right signs to tell them what Techno might approve of and what he might not. These people, they try in the ways that they may believe could matter, but Techno has never been one to think that friendship itself could matter, that they could become friends because they have things in common or because they shared bloodlust. Techno’s wary of friends who aim to kill and friends who aim to please, and so far, these are the only two categories Techno seems to find in most. The least interesting, too, and so he comes back to the single first square that declares him a loner.

Not that he is lonely - he has his life, and he has his weapons, and he has the voices. And the victories - they’re enough. 

People aren’t. Battles are. 

Square one.

Rivals are better, he thinks in terms of friendships. Rivals aim to please, but vindicate themselves in the process (or perhaps it goes the other way). Rivals are strong, and rivals are meant to be someone you can know but you can make an effort to become better than. In friendships, it’s almost insulting if you become better than someone and show them that effort and expect them to be proud of it. In rivalry, it is expected, and it doesn’t come with the cost of having to talk to someone about boring topics or small talk or sadness or loneliness. They are just there.

So the world turns, at Techno’s feet, and this is the world he knows. This is the world he understands, and he seeks none other. 

The lantern comes back, on a summer night, when Techno resolves to read outside and hear the encore of crickets somewhere within the lawn.

The lantern comes back, and for a moment, Techno’s hand hesitates on the crossbow he uses so casually as a second helping hand.

But the world does not hesitate in Techno’s hands after as the lantern is burst into colours, from fireworks this time, not arrows, and Techno trails its glorious descent like Icarus into the abyss of the nearby snow-forests of North. The crickets noise comes back as the sole soft breath of the night, the chill from before acting as if nothing had happened as Techno’s whole body stills in the rocking wooden chair he had carved for himself six years ago. 

The porch wood creaks as he moves, six and a half steps forward before he realizes what he is doing.

As he had suspected, the pitiful remains of the lantern lay among the newly birthed snow, crinkling in light as the fire dies behind the crafted walls. The glow from the snow captures his eyes and guides him towards it, growing quiet, growing somber, soft and harmless as the grass cushions his feet and the snow covers his nose and dusts his hair. Technoblade lets in a cold, cold breath of near-mountain air as the lantern flickers, coincidentally, and Technoblade notices how crappy and thin such a beautiful thing is up closer. 

But it is not like he knows any better himself, even when his fingers ache and his eyes trail over the corners. His first resolve is to snuff out the rest of the flame, dying behind its cage not meant to be broken in the way he had. His second, surprisingly, is to take the lantern and attempt to fix it - but Techno knows nearly nothing of how to create something that looks as delicate as this precious thing lying broken, and he never knows how to fix something fragile - his world is full of grace and hardships and effort, full of the grunts of a hard worker and the sigh of happy effort and the laughter of the arrogantly, teasing prideful. 

But not- not of this- 

_ Wispy _ thing that was so easily destroyed. 

Techno should-  _ does  _ not care for things that are easily taken in the world. 

He resigns to going back home, as he is standing outside his home looking at a lantern he destroyed like an idiot. 

This memory, this secret, he again locks away. He doesn’t wish to know of where the lantern came from, or where it was meant to go, or  _ who _ made it.

His world is his own - nothing more, nothing else. Not meant to be known by others, only by him. 

(But the fascination leads him to a bookstore, and it leads him to a book. He traces the binding of it before he even realizes the name of the book he is tracing, and his other hand goes towards the pouch at his side he  _ knows _ has enough to buy fourteen more copies of. He traces a coin, because his winnings could be spent towards something more  _ worthwhile- _

He buys the book. He takes it home in brown wrapping and a simple gold cord. None of the few pictures within look as lovely as the one that had been in the sky.)

The world turns again but it is hard for Techno to keep his mind within it. It seems like there are cracks, as terrifying as they are, against the world and the entire other one that everyone else lives within. He wanders the paths inside and outside the nearest villages and goes home wondering why his feet are sore. He fights, and he battles, and he wins, but all he can recall is picking the weapon up, and putting the weapon down, and nothing more as he is handed his money. A food vendor offers him some sort of exotic sweet, just once, and Technoblade is surprised to see that there is something more of the world when he notices the soft smells of food, the worn edges of her stand, the careful dotting frosting on the delight she offers. He buys two, unhungry and unwanting, and places them on a shelf for later (a later that will never come). 

His path in life is the one he has walked and chosen. He lives as he fights, strength in every breath of air, in every thought or motion he makes. He is strong, and he lives up to the name he has made.

(And it echoes, echoes in the minds of many, but the name itself feels so-  _ lonely. _ )

He is Technoblade, and everything he has crafted in his lifetime has been with purpose, with understanding, with intent. There is the battle in the world and there is the battle within his mind, and he wins, and he wins, and he  _ wins- _

He echoes victory ( _ and nothing else- _ )

Technoblade is the definition of a warrior and of strength ( _ is that all he is, perhaps? _ )

_ Technoblade never fails- _

Two.

They sneak in through the cracks that have formed, that he ignores, that he does not address. Whispers come through but they’re not the murmur of the cathartic, demanding voices in the air- one voice is light, airy, meant to carry and meant to be charming. The other is soft, rough around some edges but sanded in others that gives a warm tone in every sentence indicated. Sharp, if need be. Both pick words that show they are clever and reckless at the same time- they are voices that can seamlessly blend in the world of others but clearly stand out from the rest if need be-

The one that straps a guitar around his back and his mind around his voice admires him, Technoblade sees first, but does not let himself hesitate in words of politeness or respect. Actually, within the first ten minutes of talking that the other guy does most of, Technoblade finds himself respectfully  _ irritated _ by the man who smiles wide but cheekily, eyes glimmering in a fascinating way that evokes an air of hunger, and air of achievement, and it is sort of laughable.

Laughable that he lingers around, really, and has to learn of not one but  _ two  _ people who manage to pass through the seams he has kept for so long, pass the cracks in the wall he has ignored. Sure, the guy’s dad doesn’t seem too bad, and the air around him stands firm and gentle that plays into Technoblade’s mind as the best strategy to catch an enemy off guard. He is quieter and less irritating than Wilbur, that’s for sure, but the crick in his smile and the flick of horrible dad jokes tells Technoblade that Phil mostly contains the same air of smugness that Wilbur has-

And by three days in, Techno finds himself surprised that he has kept their names, and he has kept their space in the world within his mind. 

He  _ learns  _ their  _ names. _

_ Shit. _

They linger, as do the ideas of lanterns, and of something beyond. They are traveling, they say, and they are searching, they say. Technoblade has wandered himself, but never to search, never to find; just to fight, just to get from one location to the next. He can’t remember the last time he moved, or from where. The emptiness in his mind surprises him, and he doesn’t understand why.

They linger, unlike they’re supposed to, like the lantern that had glowed twice in his sky. He ponders the reasons in his waking hours and attempts to understand when he talks with them. This is a double-edged sword, though, because the more he talks to them to try to understand, the more this silent resolve of becoming friends- no, of already having  _ made _ them friends appears and-

Technoblade has taken a mere air of solitude before he catches the humming light in the darkened sky. The first two times, such a thing of wonder had taken away his breath in unexplainable ways. This time, though, he breathes, and he breathes easily, as he stares at the chance of destiny that he cannot avoid for a third time. 

This is the first time Technoblade lets his heart beckon for something unfamiliar. This is the first moment Technoblade realizes that he has been ensnared into the un-mystical ways of friendship and of family and of love. This is, from the moment forward, what prompts Technoblade to accept his first-ever (meaningful, memory-burning) hug from a Wilbur whom he’s just met not two-months beforehand and a hearty laugh from a Philza who acts as he has always been apart of their lives.

(Something beckons in the back of his mind that he always has. He elects to let it rest until this first mystery of the lantern is resolved.)

Technoblade has spent his life as a warrior, as a champion, because of his intense dedication to his craft. He is well known by his skills in this life, but he is unknown by many in the world at all. Perhaps, once, in another time or in another story or in another life, he had been known a little bit better, or perhaps he had been known just a little bit worse. 

Phil and Wilbur had come in near-fall and had stayed in Techno’s mountain village throughout the winter. Spring comes, and he knows they are lingering, too, and summer creeps in like the spider-webs used to in the unused guest bedrooms.

Wilbur takes his hand gently, the hand that fights and holds toys of destruction, of power, merely as a hand. He looks at Techno and he sings, in the way Techno has gotten used to, “Come  _ with  _ us, Techno, we can follow the lanterns together.”

Mystery, although entertaining to others, is not what beckons Techno forward towards the places he wishes to go. 

There is something other-worldly about this love he holds now, though, gentle, and soft, and strong. He was a bit of a fool to think it could not be. It is as curiously interesting as the lantern, as intriguing as the book on how to create them lists wordlessly.

Techno doesn’t have to say a thing, because his hand tightens in Wilbur’s, and Wilbur smiles. He smiles, and Technoblade begins to think,  _ yes, I can be a part of this world too. _

They leave, leave behind the village that Technoblade realizes he doesn’t even know the name of. Their footprints in the light snow Techno knows will be covered within days, leaving behind nothing and no memory, just like how the past in his mind is covered and empty. 

But as much as he will forget this village, as much as he forgets the battles, as much as he doesn’t recall the path he has walked, he has room to remember as much as Philza and Wilbur as he can, much of their playful arguments and hysterical laughter and their stupid, godawful jokes that they both play shit-eating grins for.

And there is room, room for more, room for these memories. Technoblade will remember, and he is pretty okay with that.


	3. Chapter 3

Tubbo has known of loneliness since he could spell his own name. The very paper he wrote upon, thin and in bright purple crayon, sits in a tub in his closet that he had put it in when he had grown old enough to be embarrassed about it. Puffy had joked about it once she found out, and both Quackity and Sapnap gave him a bit of a hard time afterward when he explained with a flushed face about its disappearance. He knew they were only joking, though- it didn’t mean that his heart was any less embarrassed about it.

To be honest, Tubbo had always believed he was a bit weak. 

This is because Tubbo has not yet grown up enough to be far away from the years of mean kids and hurtful words - Tubbo, in his first years of attending school and being alone, had been seen as something like a pitiful, easy target. He had disproved that quickly when he matched one of the school bullies, smug about the matching purple bruises he gave, but it still hurt when a few years later and the bully had grown in a few sizes past Tubbo that he and his bully buddies had swarmed him after school. Tubbo went limping towards Niki’s bakery, because it had been closer and he knew she had a first aid kit in the kitchen for ‘just in case’ emergencies. Niki, very obviously upon seeing him, told Puffy, and he had to endure her and the village’s pampering about his injuries and the carefulness he should have around school. He didn’t get in trouble, but neither did the other boys in question, and everytime they would snarl or snicker towards his way after school made anger flare up in him.

But he was one boy, and they had friends to help - Quackity and Sapnap were too old to be in the younger classes taught, so he often walked home alone. 

And this is how Tubbo has lived his life. 

It’s not a disagreeably bad one, he thinks. He lives on the edge of a forest, that opens itself to a meadow that is wide and, supposedly, long to traverse. Tubbo likes visiting the meadow a lot on good days, and on bad ones he spends entire hours at a time tending towards the wildflowers and watching the bees buzz with careful interest. 

Puffy and the others have noticed his interest in them, and offered to teach him to make honey when he’s old enough, but he tends to like just being around them in general. The air in the meadow is quiet and forgiving, and the bees are happy and content with him around - no yelling, no bullying, no threats. They are creatures that tend to the very sacred things, in a connected way that Tubbo often wishes he could as well, and it’s very nice to watch them work as he sits in the silence. The meadow has been his escape for a long time, away from the cheery facade he brings home and the tired one he brings into bed at the end of the day. It feels like, outside the village that has taken him in as a home and treats him as if he is both fragile and responsible, a breath of fresh air. 

It is a goal that his younger self had cursed him with, from a time he wouldn’t remember and a place that held no gentleness. His story starts as most boys alike him do- alone, really, and upsettingly so. It’s not like he doesn’t appreciate the older boys around him, who are friends and act like brothers. And it’s not like he hasn’t ever tried making other friends - it eventually ends up with him being left outside whatever friendship he has attempted to start, left in the background as the boys who grew up with family and care and many things like knowing their purpose from birth to be a little shithead grow up past him. He stands quite short with a lot of the other boys now, and he is an outsider because school is full of people he doesn’t know- and since they don’t know  _ him,  _ they have labeled him as something to be afraid of, something to whisper about and laugh at when he fumbles for any kind of connection to his other peers. 

So he is lonely, he thinks, but not quite. 

And anyways, besides the usual teenage escapades, the meadow is entirely empty to Tubbo only. The meadow is full of the only memories and wants he ever wants to see: the bees, the quiet, and himself being happy. He can be happy if the bees are, because it is so easy to get attached to all of them, so easy to name each and everyone differently and recognize them tomorrow. 

But there is a day when tomorrow comes, and it comes drastically. 

Because he is the only one ever out there, he is the first to spot the edges of the fire. He gasps and gapes at the torched area that held one of his favorite types of wildfires, where the bees would frequent the most, and he has to force himself to stumble back to the village in a frenzy. His mind whirrs quickly, that day, because there is a panic on Niki and Puffy and Sam’s faces, in a way that tells Tubbo this fire was in no way heard or planned. The village is ushered away, by leaders and adults and faceless people who Tubbo knows but Tubbo does not  _ know,  _ and he thinks heavily about the homes of the bees and lizards and ants that live in the area that is now gone under the heat of flame. 

The meadow is all Tubbo thinks about when the people gather in a blank spot in the forest, a rendezvous nearby a river that runs fresh water and where the game is bountiful. They will be okay here, someone tells Tubbo, or perhaps he just hears, as the fire roars in the far distance in a place so beautiful.

It’s unfair, Tubbo thinks, that something so precious is destroyed. It is unfair. 

It is two full months until the village agrees that they are allowed to head back. For countless days and nights Tubbo has seen group after group, iron buckets full of water in hand and tired looks on their faces as soot stains their clothes leave and come back, growling and angry and exhausted. For two months, Tubbo thinks every day about the bees and the flowers and how ugly that fire is, to spread and to crackle and to warm him at night, how ugly something can be to go from safety to destruction. It is within this moment, Tubbo knows, that he could absolutely despise the world.

So they go back, and Tubbo is not allowed back to the meadow for another six days. His feet ache every time he must step off the worn path only his walk has made towards the meadow, and when he lingers too long Sam gives him a click of his tongue in a disappointing manner. Tubbo doesn’t think of anyone specifically as his parents, but Sam is still pretty parental enough to make Tubbo feel bad about being so angry and taking it out on the world. His feet still linger when he edges off the path, though, and the moment he is told he is allowed back he sprints as fast as he can towards his only safe place. 

The dead brown look of  _ everything _ disappoints him. His heart drops, and tears well in his eyes, and he thinks of the injustice of the fire against his perfect meadow. 

And it hurts worse, later, when the school kids tease the state of it. The teacher educates them on how good the fire is, but Tubbo dips his head in disbelief. It is so cruel, he thinks, that things must burn to make something better. It didn’t  _ need _ to be better. It was perfect as it was.

And then a boy whispers to his buddy, when the teacher is turned away, “I like how it is now. I think it looks cool. It burned everything to a crisp!”

Later, Tubbo thinks about that when he cries for the precious bees. All of them are gone, despite his searching. What is left of the hives is shambles and broken anger. What is left is the dead of the dirt, the death of the beauty, and Tubbo is unbelieving that fire should have to roar and create agony just so that things will come back better.

It's not better, because it all burned, despite everyone telling him that the burning will make everything better. 

Sam and Quackity and Sapnap and Karl and the people that care about him try their best to cheer him up, take his mind of the meadow, but his only place of happiness and solitude lingers burning in his mind as the fire had. He spends many, many days after school or a day of chores to run back to the place that is still gone, still blackened and empty of all the things Tubbo enjoyed. It hurts, as the things do when we return to places that hold destroyed happy moments, and it stings so much that Tubbo wishes he had been within the fire itself so as to never feel the type of pain he does every time a tear rolls down his pale face. 

But people care about him, because he is young and lonely and hurting, and so Puffy tells Tubbo that he isn’t allowed to go back to the meadow until it grows back because it's hurting him (hurting  _ them,  _ he thinks selfishly, it hurts his friends) when he goes back time and time again to look at the destruction and linger in sadness and despair. 

He starts sneaking out, though, because it pains him to stay anywhere else. It  _ hurts _ to think about the meadow, and it hurts to remain there, but it hurts even worse when he is barred from looking at the place that had been made of comfort for so long.

And this is the time that he spots it. Days in the meadow are different than the nights, because in the day it's easy to see the hurt and the chaos that had reigned from the anger of flames, from the rage of destruction to make life anew. In the night, it is quiet, and normally so, and this tricks Tubbo’s senses into believing that the meadow is just resting for the night instead of being alarmingly too quiet. The rest of the world slumbers and is quiet, at night, and no one is awake to stop him from leaving, and so when the weeks pass by and the nights calm him in the way the day couldn’t, it is these sleepless nights that he spots the soft golden light being caressed by the dark, gentle hand of the resting sky. 

And it is the  _ only  _ residing light. The fireflies around had died when the meadow had, another merciless destruction that had Tubbo distraught, so it is a surprise to see something so full of breathing life afloat in the sky. It hovers, not around the meadow but a little further, but Tubbo feels as if its presence can be felt from all the way to the edge of the village, and certainly where Tubbo stands in the grim reminder of dead plains and grass. Tubbo gapes at the sight with a wide mouth, eyes lingering like those do with dreamers and cloud-watchers, and it is though that the sudden ascent of this light is meant to be both in comfort and in grief; as if it knows that the life around had perished, and is offering some sort of golden drop of essence back into the dark, dark meadow grounds. 

This single lantern, in that distance above the other side of the meadow and on the edge of the opposing forest, bright and warm within the far distance of an ocean of darkness as if it is a lifeboat. He sees this, and he knows - this is some sort of offering, some sort of guidance. It is meant to show him some sort of way, some form of life, to see the beauty as he does restlessly elsewhere. Something in his body, in his soul, it aches for the warmth that this light casts. It almost feels complete.

It is a signal. He is meant to follow, to see, to know.

And that very same night, that very same moment, he knows that others know too. It is because, as the lantern grows fainter in the distance, there comes three men, in different shadows and sizes, somber and leading and warm, and Tubbo pries his eyes away from the light of the lantern to the beings that have come into its embracing glow.

A being with a sword and a cape, and a being with wings and laughter, and a being with a guitar and a smile.

Something in his heart stirs. It stirs like a nice, warm drink when the steam rises in a puff of vapor to cozy the edge of your cheeks with warmth. It stirs like the calm waters of a lake that has a leaf circling lazily by unseen tension. It stirs like the wind through the thin, supple blades of grass when the breeze asks nicely to be let through. 

Life follows this lantern, and these people. Tubbo wants to follow it too.

“Come with?” Wilbur asks, though Tubbo feels this is rhetorical. 

Tubbo grieves for the meadow. The baby grass that yawns out of the edged exits of the meadow make him hesitate, but forgiveness is still hard to find. This lantern’s light guides, though, as does Phil’s laughter, as does the un-taken path before, as does the untouched parts of nature they travel through, and Tubbo realizes that honey in other parts of the world tastes different, yet so nostalgically alike to the honey that he used to make himself.

Honey, just as sweet, sometimes a little more bitter, in other parts of the world. Tubbo didn’t know that. He follows the lantern with his family effortlessly.


	4. Chapter 4

And the lantern guides, as light tends to do, and they follow nearly blindlessly. As they follow, the lantern whispers and guides and beckons and cries into their hearts, into memories that they didn’t think to have or taste, about moments or worlds they never quite knew of. It guides them to other beings as well, like a kind-worded being with horns and wings and no halo and a nearly diamond-tinted friend alongside, or like a being with sunglasses and a crown or a man with headset and ambition, or hybrids such as a ram-horned man or a tall, timid one. They are meant to meet them, or perhaps they had already in a life long ago and they were just aimlessly searching without thinking. They know that the lantern comes to most of them, though, as each and every story, each and every reunion-moment is met with knowing, glassy eyes that detail things shared between souls. Some deny the path like Technoblade had long ago, waving off the lantern or ignoring its existence or truth completely. Others, like Ranboo, for instance, were searching too; just not like them. Tubbo certainly liked Ranboo, and he wishes he’d come with them, but the tall-leaning man felt as if he had his own path to follow, for this lantern. They all understood, as humming spirits do, and they said goodbye; though not forever. 

They travel, and for so long. A long time ago they quit attempting to understand the possibility of the lantern or its mysterious traveling-abilities or the memories it provided them in nights when they couldn’t sleep, and dreams in the nights they could. Something feels misaligned, as if there were something forgotten or misplaced, but every change of the season or the landscape has them all believing that this search isn’t in vain as some claimed in their past - this means something, something special, and it builds up such an tremor in their psyche that they’re all practically shivering for when they finally find it. 

Because that is what it feels like - a search, a journey, towards something meaningful. And not just that - something that tastes like home, a home that they have not remembered or known of very much in this world, a world that stamps into their eyes and words that they have never spoken into their mouths, or the way Phil recalls such a closeness to Technoblade or how Wilbur feels as if the air is empty of something more or how Tubbo feels like there is something he is meant to be a part of, something precious, something known. 

They talk about theories, of course, for what it could all mean. Wilbur believes it is reincarnation. Phil believes it is meaning they are returning (towards what, he doesn’t know). Techno and Tubbo both believe it means they are seeking something that has been lost. They bicker over these theories above a campfire that smokes their game, and they become confused more than once by some of the long silences that fog their way through nightly-conversations. 

And it is because there is an ache. An ache, a want, a search, a space to fill. There is a road they have not walked, and words that have gone unsaid, and places that have gone unbuilt and unseen. There are people they know of that they should not be familiar with, and there are memories that feel far-away and forgein.

But they feel like home. They feel like forgiveness. They feel like a second chance.

They are nearing the horizon, the exhaustion of the day when the sun completes its tiring journey of carrying all the world's gold on its back. The air tastes earthy and warm, the competitive noise of the insects burning into the background of life like a tasteful silence. Tubbo is trailing his hands on the barks of nearby trees, when he spots the unnatural path that cuts right through a small passage of trees. 

“Oh my god,” He breathes, his heart breaking and healing together in mere seconds. “Oh my god, that’s it.”

He doesn’t know how he knows, he just knows that he is already pacing up the path with Wilbur behind him as he goes. 

And the world stands still for them, as they walk forwards - it stops, as if it knows that they are reaching a finale, a final place. The worn-down path lurches forward and twists and turns but it's as if all of their minds already know the way, as if they have walked this very path a thousand times with muscle memory. The padded grass is soft beneath their feet and the hazy sun is walking with them in sunrays, in orange-gold and blushing red as they march together towards- towards-

The path opens, the trees sway lightly, moving aside for them like a curtain. The area they cut into is wide, and perfect - lived in and full of plants that beckon hard-working insects closer and rocks that burst out of the earth like islands in the oceans. The wide area gives way for the glowing curtain of the exhausted sun to light through, the rays struggling but managing to pass through the tops of trees and branches. The wind sways, but it breathes silently, wistfully - it waits, patiently, like everything else, it waits oh so patiently. 

There is a big rock in the right of this cleared area, big enough that someone could stand on it. A boy with golden hair does so, holding in his hands the fragile, just-lit mass of a lantern ready to be released into the depths of the night sky.

Tubbo cries out, in a gasping, breathless way. The boy turns around, blue eyes shimmering with a wild amount of surprise. 

But then he smiles, the blue electric and enchanting because of the golden glow of the lantern, and the world clicks into place in a finalizing way as he  _ laughs- _

“Thank god,” Tommy says with relief. “I was wondering how much longer you would take.”


End file.
